[SOLVED] Why can't I run my ram at max XMP speeds?

[captainexplosion]

I just built this PC a few days ago, I'm using a Ryzen 5 2600 along with 2 sticks of 3600Mhz DDR4 memory. The mobo is a Gigabyte b450 aorus elite.

I just barely built this PC and after installing windows updates and such, I enable XMP memory, which boosted me up to 3600MHz. It ran completely stable during gaming and benchmarking for about 2 days, and then all the sudden, the PC crashed in it's entirety. I found if I turned off XMP, it ran stable. I played with that for a bit and 3000MHz seems stable, but I don't understand why it won't go higher!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Your CPU does not support speeds over 3000mhz on that motherboard. If you look at the Pinnacle ridge (Your CPU generational family) you will see that there are no memory kits higher than 3000mhz validated for XMP. Mostly, you won't usually see anything for Pinnacle ridge above 3200mhz and many systems won't do higher than 2933mhz. It also depends on the memory kit. Obviously, if you have a B-die memory kit on a high end board, you might be successful in tweaking it to run slightly higher than a low end memory kit on an entry level board, but not by that much.

Little more confirmation on this can be found here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/ryzen-7-2700x-ram-speed.3477718/

You MIGHT be able to hit 3200mhz if you have the most current BIOS, a good board and a high end memory kit, otherwise 2933/3000mhz is probably where you're going to start seeing problems when you try to go past it. If you want to run the memory at 3600mhz, you will likely need a 3000 or 5000 series CPU. BIOS support for the 5000 series CPUs on B450 boards won't be coming until sometime in January.

 

[captainexplosion]

Your CPU does not support speeds over 3000mhz on that motherboard. If you look at the Pinnacle ridge (Your CPU generational family) you will see that there are no memory kits higher than 3000mhz validated for XMP. Mostly, you won't usually see anything for Pinnacle ridge above 3200mhz and many systems won't do higher than 2933mhz. It also depends on the memory kit. Obviously, if you have a B-die memory kit on a high end board, you might be successful in tweaking it to run slightly higher than a low end memory kit on an entry level board, but not by that much.

Little more confirmation on this can be found here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/ryzen-7-2700x-ram-speed.3477718/

You MIGHT be able to hit 3200mhz if you have the most current BIOS, a good board and a high end memory kit, otherwise 2933/3000mhz is probably where you're going to start seeing problems when you try to go past it. If you want to run the memory at 3600mhz, you will likely need a 3000 or 5000 series CPU. BIOS support for the 5000 series CPUs on B450 boards won't be coming until sometime in January.

This was super helpful, I'm running at 3200Mhz right now, still gonna do some benchmarks and such to see if it runs stable. But I still don't understand how I was able to run at 3600MHz for 2 days? The BIOS said it was, so I'm just really confused about that part.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Based on both the Corsair memory finder and G.Skill memory configurator, as well as the Pinnacle ridge motherboard QVL list for your board, there shouldn't be any validated 3600mhz kits for that board when using that CPU. I suspect that it may have been showing as 3600mhz in the BIOS but was actually dropping to a lower frequency during memory training as part of the POST process so that in Windows it wasn't actually running at that speed. Who knows though. If you say it was running at 3600mhz then maybe it was but it's got a real doubt factor attached to it.

Either way, what is the actual model of the memory kit you are running?

 

[captainexplosion]

Based on both the Corsair memory finder and G.Skill memory configurator, as well as the Pinnacle ridge motherboard QVL list for your board, there shouldn't be any validated 3600mhz kits for that board when using that CPU. I suspect that it may have been showing as 3600mhz in the BIOS but was actually dropping to a lower frequency during memory training as part of the POST process so that in Windows it wasn't actually running at that speed. Who knows though. If you say it was running at 3600mhz then maybe it was but it's got a real doubt factor attached to it.

Either way, what is the actual model of the memory kit you are running?

I just picked out the cheapest set of 3600MHz RAM I could find, linked here: https://www.newegg.com/oloy-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820821322?Description=oloy 16gb 3600&cm_re=oloy_16gb 3600--20-821-322--Product

You said I might be able to get 3200MHz with a good set, and I'm impressed with the quality of this, as it was so cheap. I ran Cinebench R23 for about 30 minutes at 3200MHz with no issues.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, that works. If you're running at 3200mhz there is really no reason to change, although I'll say that I am absolutely not a fan of OLOy memory. They are very new to the memory scene and from what I've been able to observe their products are not high quality at all. They are clearly very, VERY budget oriented, which of course will have a direct trickle down effect on build quality and component selection used to build their memory modules.

Don't be surprised if you have problems, more than you've already had, down the road. If we're being honest here, I'd highly recommend returning them if you can and source something from G.Skill. But again, if it's working..........